Archive for March, 2014

Repairs and improvements to the Transpeninsular Highway are delaying traffic south of Loreto, but this was a Sunday and the weather was supposed to be good until noon, and so Leif, Susan, Travis and I made the trip down to Ensenada Blanca. As Leif says, it’s never like you expect, but the wildlife turned out for us and it turned out to be a really good day. The season has arrived when cloud cover is not unwelcome here.
Since wind was forecast early, we decided not to chance heading down the coast to the south, but instead struck out to look at the little islands between the bay and Isla Danzante. We started with the one to the north of Isla Pardo, which had been a birder’s disappointment when Leif and I were here in February 2012, but which clearly sees a lot of bird traffic. Today it boasted not just the usual collection of gulls, pelicans and frigate birds, but a big new colony of Blue-footed Boobies.
It seems to me that I have seen a name for this island, perhaps Isla Segunda. That is the southern end of Isla del Carmen in the distance beyond.
We circled Isla Tijeras as well, then returned to the coast to have lunch on the beach north of Ensenada Blanca. Besides all the birds, and some rays who were also doing a little flying, we saw a sea lion and a distant whale, and Leif and Travis, in the double kayak, paced a pod of dolphins for some distance.
By the way, it used to be that you reached Ensenada Blanca by leaving the road at the sign for the Parque Nacional and then just not turning onto any side streets as you drove through Ligüi; but no longer will the offical at the gate erected by the timeshare simply wave you through. Instead, bear left at the tiny church to arrive at the other end of the same parking lot, near the north end of the beach.